President Donald Trump (C) arrives, flanked by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (L), to address the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting on January 26, 2018 in Davos, Switzerland.
- "Every question I've gotten as I've walked up and down the [Davos] Promenade today is, 'is he coming back?'" Tim Adams, president of the Institute of International Finance, told CNBC on Tuesday.
- Some Davos participants are already preparing their business for a change at the White House.
DAVOS, Switzerland ꟷ Donald Trump is not among the attendees at this year's edition of the World Economic Forum in Davos, but his potential reelection as president of the United States is very much part of the conversation at the Swiss Alpine resort.
"Every question I've gotten as I've walked up and down the [Davos] Promenade today is, 'is he coming back?'" Tim Adams, president of the Institute of International Finance, told CNBC on Tuesday.
"So, I think there is a lot of interest in that question and what does that mean, and who would be in the key positions," he added.
Trump won the Iowa caucuses earlier this week, setting a record for victory margins at the meetings. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came in a distant second, followed by former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
The Iowa vote was seen as the first big test in the Republican primary campaign ahead of the 2024 presidential election. With Trump leading the Republican pack so far, the November election is likely to be another runoff between the former president and Democratic incumbent Joe Biden.
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Some Davos participants are already preparing their business for a potential Republican leader in the White House.
"Considering what happened when President Trump was in office, his main interest is trade. So we have to expect trade issues will be very serious," Takeshi Niinami, CEO of Japanese drinks maker Suntory, told CNBC on Wednesday.
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He added his company is allocating more resources to its operations in the United States so it can protect itself against any trade disputes.
"We have to produce locally, especially in the United States. ... We have scenarios to be able to respond to that leadership change," he added. The U.S. is one of the main markets for Suntory, which is looking to expand its sales beyond China.
In the past 12 months, the U.S. Congress has been dominated by uncertainty, with changes in the House speakership, friction over spending plans and foreign policy priorities, to name just a few crises.
For Bill Winters, CEO of Standard Chartered, one of the main questions is how would a new U.S. leader interact with China, following years of tensions between Washington and Beijing.
"The slight reengagement that we're seeing through the Biden administration are an indication to me that the U.S. is looking to stabilize [relations with China]," the top bank CEO said, giving a nod to recent trips by U.S. officials to China.
"If Trump becomes president, we know that he's a transactional president, and there's probably a transaction in there someplace, that keeps the economy on an even keel, without fundamentally disrupting that relationship. But of course, we watch all the time, and we're well aware that there could be either unintended consequences or accidents," Winters said.
When asked what a Trump return could mean for U.S. fiscal policy, the IIF's Adams replied: "We have a debt problem globally. We have the highest levels of debt in a nonwar period in modern history and it's at the corporate, household, sovereign, sub-sovereign."
"We have a huge fiscal problem everywhere, including the U.S. We're running [a] deficit at 7% of GDP. We need sobriety and we need to focus on how we are going to get our fiscal house in order," he said.
Even back at one of the hotels in Davos the chat was still centered on Trump. Two attendees were overheard discussing the latest from the U.S. political scene, with one expressing his discontent with a potential repetition of the last election, which saw incumbent Trump lose out to Biden.
"Nothing gets done in U.S. politics anymore," the attendee said.
EU concerned about U.S. election
The chatter around the U.S. election goes beyond Davos, however. A top EU official told CNBC Wednesday that the bloc has concerns and is "preparing for any option."
The European Union, the political and economic organization of 27 nations, was previously criticized by political experts for not taking the election of Trump seriously back in 2016. The EU and Trump clashed over many items, most notably on trade and the role of multilateral institutions.
"Of course, it will have influence in the EU," Vera Jourova, European Commission vice president, told CNBC in Davos regarding the U.S. election.
"If Mr. Trump will become the president ... we might see a strengthening of Russia and increasing of appetite of Putin to grab more territory, and this directly endangering the security of our member states," she said, adding that "we have concerns, we are preparing for any option."
— CNBC's Sam Meredith contributed to this report.
